Physician, Heal Thyself: Ollistra understands like all good despots that the Doctor’s sentimentality can be exploited. The Doctor is present in this story but it still feels far more about the Twelve than it does him. He reacts to events but the meat of the story is focused on his Time Lady companion.
Bless Bliss: Her world as she remembers it doesn’t exist anymore. Her past, her family all wiped away. Umm, wouldn’t it have been emotionally productive to have Bliss recount this with some sense of regret rather than stating it like she is reeling off her shopping list. Why do companions in this Time War era have to be so damn blasé about things that should absolutely crush them? Clara was just as bad. I don’t care if her hazy memory of her home world is part of the plot – I would prefer for the events of the first story of this set to have an emotional impact rather than a narrative one. Anything to give this material a little meaning. What do we know about Bliss at the end of this box set that we didn't know at the beginning? She's an orphan of the Time War...and that's about it. That's two four-part box sets that she has appeared in now and whilst Rakee Thakrar's performance is improving with each story, I'm not sure that the character is any way more engaging than she was. She's the Doctor's friend and that seems to be her single unique feature.
Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Time Lords. Time War. For an all-powerful species you don’t go in for imaginative names.
Great Ideas: A Dalek battle submarine sounds like a very cool idea, no? It conjures up images of a ridiculously overdesigned submersible. Away from the Time Wars’ battlefront on a pulverised planet, the Daleks are drilling underwater into the ocean floor looking for something. No matter what she does, no matter how much she tries to make amends, the Time Lords still see the Twelve as a threat. The Daleks aren’t looking for a weapon but an entity called the Oorosheyma. If the Daleks could gain possession of a creature that could predict with absolute certainty events that would play out they could win the Time War.
Audio Landscape: The Oorosheyma is clearly the work of the casts voices melded together. There’s something a little unimaginative about that, especially when some of their voices are very distinctive.
Isn’t it Odd: I’m not what to say about the second box set of the eighth Doctor Time War because it follows in exactly the same path as the first set of opening with its most startling instalment and haemorrhages interest after that, albeit with a greater sense of entertainment this time around. When it comes to tackling the Time War with imagination and striking ideas, this is severely lacking again. What’s more where the first set had the novelty of being the eighth Doctor’s introduction to the conflict, this set sits on the periphery of the fight. It’s far more content with telling its own stories than delving into the ins and outs of the fight. So, it’s almost a mistitled series of stories. Hanging out on the edges of the Time War would be more apt. My biggest problem with the premise is how to tell a series of stories around a conflict where we already know what the resolution and the fallout is? You can add a little colour to a piece of Doctor Who mythology but ultimately you’re colouring in a picture that has already been drawn. A more cynical man would suggest that that is exactly what the company does with the main range all the time; add detail to an established story. But there has been a real effort made with Doctors Five, Six and Seven to innovate those eras, to try things that were never possible on television. These Time War stories can be creative and bold, but I find the average actually achieving that is one story per box set and the rest settles for the sort of vanilla audio storytelling I have come to expect when Big Finish is tackling the new series.
I swear we have had a story with our heroes besieged on an ocean planet before recently within new series continuity. Daleks underwater is very reminiscent of Children of the Revolution from DWM and that was so spectacular they basically have that idea sown up. A character is sacrificed halfway through the story but I couldn’t tell you who that person was or why they were relevant. Their backstory is info dumped straight after her death, to try and give it significance. The Captain agonising over the decision feels like more cliched wartime storytelling. Doesn’t the idea of a creature that can predict every event with 100% certainty rather go against what has been established within Davies and Moffat’s time on the show that this conflict was constantly in flux and utterly impossible to forecast? More to the point doesn’t it go against how Doctor Who has played out science fiction right back to the days of Hartnell that time is in flux? Isn’t the point of Doctor Who that he travels to different times and places and makes a difference, whether he should or not? Surely this creature is an anathema to the very nature of the show?
Standout Scene: ‘Victory! Victory!’ chant the Daleks when they come close to reaching their objective. Even they sound half hearted about this, as if they know they are about to have it snatched away at the last minute. Either that or the creature will turn on them. ‘You will obey! You will obeyyyy…’
Result: ‘If the Daleks find what they’re looking for…every war is over!’ The Daleks are up to something terrible on a world we’re trapped on to discover some ultimate weapon to help in their cause to destroy the Time Lords. These stories are all starting to sound very familiar. Guess what? It might work, they might succeed and they might use it to take out a million other worlds that we have never heard of before. The eighth Doctor will be hardened by the events and ultimately become the War Doctor. Guess what? We’ve already heard his series of adventures too. And they all sound like this one. Back to the first sentence of this summary again. Tom Baker used the words ‘audible print’ once to describe some of the scripts in his era that failed to tackle ideas intelligently and surprisingly. The Big Finish Time War stories are the aural equivalent. With the mind set the Big Finish is in there is only really one story that can be told within this framework. Back to the first sentence of this summary again. Bliss isn’t a gripping enough companion to add a new dimension to these stories and the Twelve has been in three stories now so the novelty of having Julia McKenzie involved has worn off. What we need at this stage is a climactic story that feels like it turns the Time War premise on its head. That gives an artistic purpose to exploring this quirk of continuity. Right now, I would even take something as simple as somebody else taking on the mantle of performing the Dalek voices, just to mark a story as a something a little different from before. Maybe these stories just aren’t for me. Maybe they are for people who are happy to nestle inside a cliché and listen to Daleks screaming and the Doctor anguishing and technobabble raging. But looking at these stories with an objective mind they just aren’t going anywhere that strays off the path laid down by Steven Moffat, and irritatingly I don’t want to be excluded just in case through some magic quirk of luck they do. Until then I will get back on my hamsters wheel and go round and round: 3/10
5 comments:
For me it seems that BF has lost it's innovative and original touch, especially in stories set in new era of DW. Everything about these Time War boxsets is so mundane, so cliched and repetitive that while listening I start looking for time, when will the story end. Imho they really should do some surprising and brave move, something like with the last Gallifrey season in order to make TW stories engaging and at least not so boring. But you are absolutely right, there aren't much creative space for doing that.
Also there are so many overhyped positivity about these releases. Other reviewers should probably start using a 100/100 scale for them because 10/10 is already overused. Are they happy with cliches, have a very narrow range of audio experience or it is just a trend being super positive about everything Doctor Who related? I don't know.
It really was painfully by the numbers: 'Does The Doctor have it in him to order someone to die? No'.
After all the time spent on characterizing The Twelve it turns out she just... went to a wet planet one time.
I can't wrap my head around why this box set even exists!
Maybe Doctor Who has run out of steam? I hate myself for saying that but it keeps turning up in my mind.
I agree with the first comment. All the TW stories(including the war Doctor)are nothing special or original, just an ordinary Dalek war with lots of Daleks shouting. All the nightmarish stuff that RTD conjured and teased, where it is? Maybe he was right in that the TW is better left to the imagination
The challenge with the Eighth Doctor and the Time War is that we know:
1) He's not actually going to commit to involving himself in the Time War.
2) The Time War's not going to end
3) The Doctor's going to be able to do little to nothing to mitigate the damage of the Time War.
There really is a limit to the type of stories you can tell, particularly if Cardinal Ollistra keeps determining that in the hunt for weapons that can end the Time War is to draft in the Time War's biggest conscientious objector. It's a bit balmy really.
I'm not sure I like the idea Nicholas Briggs expressed of an infinite number of box sets of nothing but the Eighth Doctor flailing about the Time War ineffectually.
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